Ty is in preschool

So, yeah, my 3 1/2 year T-Y started preschool last week at Central Michigan University's Human Growth and Development Laboratory. Long name for a preschool run on campus and staffed with full time teachers and CMU students. This has been a hard decision for us... Ty has a delay in speech and is somewhat delayed in other behavioral areas also. We researched the school, talked with some past student parents and also observed the classroom in December. We decided to give it a try. What a wonderful opportunity it will be for him! We are very excited for his growth at this school. Ty goes to school 4 afternoons a week for 3 hours each day. He just finished his 2nd week of school this term and is very well adjusted to the class, routine, friends, etc. He makes a picture in art every day to bring home, he plays outside with kids everyday, he receives speech therapy 2x week, and is genuinely happy about going every day (so far!) Yay!
Thomas and Trevor did not attend this preschool when they were young. They went to a preschool housed in the First United Methodist Church, here in Mt. Pleasant. We were very happy with this preschool, however, decided to try this school at CMU with Ty. He will be in school well after Tom and Trevor are out in June, which will be hard for him to understand if everyone else is at home, swimming in the pool, etc., and he still has to go to school; we will cross that bridge when June comes, I guess. His last day of school is something like June 24th or close to it... Anyway, I just wanted to share that bit... we are noticing changes and growth in his words and sentences everyday... He is a very happy little boy. He is very head strong, yet the most cuddly, giant baby I have ever known. Some days are a real challenge getting through to him and other days, well, we just have some really fun days together. I could not imagine what our life would be like without his dynamic personality in it. He definitely is the spice of our family recipe! Oh, TY... you are just a gem... truly you are.

Weekly update

So, it is Friday night, and how exciting is my life... I am home on the computer! The big boys (Tom, Trevor and Dad) are downhill skiing tonight and I am home with the little ones (Ty and Taryn). So, Ty had his first experience with a head injury and a doctor! Thursday afternoon he was at home and fell and hit the back of his head on an upholstered ottoman. The cut is on the back of his head and we felt it necessary to be looked at by a physician. It is obviously where there is lots of hair and hard to see just how deep of a cut it was, so after we got the bleeding to stop, we took him to see the doctor. We all decided 1 staple was sufficient in helping it heal properly. So with Dad and Mom and the nurse holding him down... the doctor moved very quickly and inserted the staple into his skin. Afterwards, he kicked, bit, hit and screamed at anyone he could reach... I tried several times to get a good picture, to no avail. The camera would not cooperate, then Ty would not cooperate. So, just use your imagination.

Next weekend, Rick and Julie fly off to Las Vegas for 5 days! I know! Seriously! I can't believe it either! We have awesome family willing to do the childcare for 4 crazy kids for 5 days! Yikes! So, other news, mom is wrapping up a PTO fundraiser for our elementary school and starting a small part of the giant workload for our annual elementary school carnival. Dad just had a crazy week with meetings, a HUGE student leasing party where they had tremendous turnout and lots and lots of apartment leases signed... Bella, well she is just... no news from her. Oh, she got a new collar recently (CMU Chippewas!). Taryn is doing well. She had some immunizations last week and will be caught up with all of them next week; had a visit to a pediatric endocrinologist this week for her thyroid... will post more on that condition as information becomes available. Trevor and Tom both had great report cards for this past marking period... Trevor's reward: some college football jerseys ordered online. Tom's reward: CASH! (please, he's 10!)

Ty started preschool at CMU's Human Growth and Development Lab this past week. He did absolutely wonderful! He transitioned very well and was excited to go each afternoon. He will attend this preschool 4 afternoons a week, about 3 hours each day. He will also receive his speech therapy there, like he was receiving through the school system, which has made such a difference in his behavior; he is better understood, therefore does not act out quite as much because we can mostly understand him.

So, we have no plans for the weekend... packing and hanging out with family... plan to love on that new nephew and I'm sure have some big kid friends over to play; but other than that... pretty low key... looking forward to some VEGAS time! We have tickets to see Donny & Marie and Elton John, while we are there. It is somewhat of a business trip; Rick has a trade show to go to for Student Apartment Rentals/Management, so while he does that... I'll be relaxing in the spa! Yay!

All for now... honestly, I have been playing on Facebook for about 2 weeks now and I am addicted to it! It's awesome, check it out!

Brandon Leroy McGuirk

Our new nephew, Brandon Leroy, was born tonight! Mom, Jennifer's water broke shortly after 7pm and he was born at Central Michigan Community Hospital about 9:20pm or so! Yup! like 2 or 3 pushes! Seriously! Here he is with his big sisters, Paige (age 7) and Alexis (age 5). Mom Jennifer and Dad Chuck are very proud. I (Aunt Julie) ran up to the hospital to see him tonight while (Uncle) Rick stayed home with kids because he is sick, so he will have to wait to see him.

He weighed 7# even and is 19 3/4 in long. I think lots of thick black hair and beautiful skin. Jennifer is like a baby machine! You did great again!

Weekly update

Yay! So, my sis-in-law, Jennifer, who has been preg forever... her water just broke! We will have a new McGuirk in our family soon! We think it will be a boy, which is wonderful since they already have two girls in their family; and another boy to carry on the family name will be wonderful too.

So, my scrapbooking weekend was great. I am officially going "digital";scrapbooking that is. All us girls got lots of photos scrapped, had lots of laughs, some of us had wine, some had only water. Anyway, these weekends are cherished by me and again will look forward to another one before the summer months come.

Another bit of info, mom (me) just finished a workout program with her trainer and several other gals and had really good results! It was a 10-day program doing TurboJam, either live workouts or at home. Really fun workouts and rewarding too! Rick and Julie are going to do a "Couples" Bootcamp starting Feb 1st for the entire month. Workouts will be with each other and other couples. Food plan, workouts, extra "homework", the works... We both have goals to work towards... mid-March we are going to Ft. Lauderdale for two weeks with the fam... TWO WEEKS on the beach... if that is not an inspiration I don't know what is.

So, tonight we are in the basement trying to have a family movie night. We are all in PJ's and looking for a movie we can all agree on. Saturday night we have a sitter so we can go out with friends... Keeping the balance is a must in this crazy family!

Mom away for the weekend

Mom is a scrapbooker. I love to look at photos, take photos, and organize photos. Hence, scrapbooking weekends are a necessity to keep up. This weekend, mom joined 7 other gals at a lake cottage for the weekend to have some "girl" time and work on family photos. So, Dad and Grandma are in charge of kids. Grandma and Ty are enjoying some alone time, while Dad keeps the troops in line at home. Friday was family movie night at our elementary school and it was sponsored by the PTO organization, so I left scrapbooking to attend the movie night. It was a nice time enjoyed by over 50 families in the gymnasium. After that, mom drove back to the cottage to join the gals and scrap-ed until 1:30am. Up again at 9am to get started again. That online photo album that I mentioned earlier will hopefully be up and working after this weekend. Howz Dad doing? Just fine, I bet...

Home back in MIchigan

Saturday started out with early morning (up at 4am, at the airport by 5:30am) travels from Ft. Lauderdale back to Michigan. Our flight was delayed a while on the tarmac and we were worried we would miss our connection in Atlanta; when we landed and found out our plane was boarded and waiting just for us... well Julie ran through 2 concourses with 4 kids and carry - on's to make it to our gate. I do mean, RAN. Rick had to wait for the stroller to come up from below the plane so we took off running with out him. We all had to use the restroom, the bags were heavy and the "babies" were not happy... but we all made it and the plane waited for us. We arrived home in Flint on time, about noon, to 21 degree weather from 75 degree weather. Bummer.

Saturday remained uneventful with Tom taking off as soon as he could to a friend's house for an overnight stay and Trevor over to Cousin Paige's house for some "away time" from the fam... (can't blame them...) the "babies" were stuck with mom unpacking bags and doing laundry, while Dad went to town for a few hours.

We have not posted any pics lately because Julie is trying to get lots of pics organized on an online photo album site that will link through blogspot, so the blog posts will not be so long. Anyway, stay tuned for pics from the beach and others, as I get them organized.

I took a really cute video of the kids at the beach... can wait to share it with you.

Monday we look forward to getting back to school and routines, a new gym/tumble class for all the kids (after school) and the big kids start ski school at Snowsnake Mountain. Julie is getting organized for a scrapbooking weekend coming up soon, and as always, PTO activities keep her very busy. Christmas decorations need to be put away, both outside and inside, and some Christmas presents still need to be opened and put together.

So, we hope all of you had a safe and fun New Year's Eve with family and friends... Here's to 2009... may it be the best year yet.

Planes Trains and Automobiles

Yes, that's what it felt like trying to get our family to Florida! December 26th started out as any travel day does... bags packed, house clean, laundry done, Bella to the kennel and on the road on time (usually). Anyway, our flight to Florida started at Flint airport and when we left the house, the flight was on time (does this give you a hint...?)

Arriving at the airport, we were told that our Delta flight was CANCELLED. Not delayed. Just cancelled. Apparently Atlanta airport (our connection) had LOST it's radar! Yeah! I first thought, *$#&!?*, then I thought, gee, glad we were not already in the air when Atlanta's tower Lost it!, so anyway, after about 1 1/2 hours negotiating with Delta's ticket counter, we were booked on a flight out of Grand Rapids airport at 6am Saturday morning. Fine we thought. We will drive to GR, get a hotel and get to bed early and get on the plane Saturday morning. No biggie, we can handle a small delay in our travel plans. (or so we thought)

So, we do as planned, get to the airport at 5am, Rick drops us off in the rain at the door, with no porter to help with the bags, we get all the bags in the terminal, Rick drives off to park the car and guess what... yup, THE FLIGHT WAS CANCELLED!
FOG DELAY. This time it took us 2 1/2 hours at the Delta ticket counter and when we walked away, the flight they booked us on was out of Chicago on MONDAY morning. Well, earlier when I said *$#*%?!, that does not describe how we felt when we drove away from GR airport. The Fog and warm rain on Saturday was not going to let any flights in to or out of any mid west airports. None. None of out Detroit, Cincinnati, Chicago; for days.

So, we drove away from the airport, went to a restaurant to eat some breakfast and figure out our plan. We decided to drive. Yes, the car was packed, the kids were fed, and we were absolutely determined to get to Florida to have our vacation! So we headed the car south, programmed the navigation system for Ft. Lauderdale and started our journey. (I know most of you reading this are thinking... are they insane?) You are all entitled to your own opinions...

So, after we drove for a while we called friends and family to tell them what was going on with us. A wonderful friend told us to head for Nashville and get a flight from there to Ft. Lauderdale. We called another friend to look for flights out of Nashville for us and soon we again had a smile on our face as we received a refund from Delta to cover the cost of the flight from Nashville to Ft. Lauderdale; so we booked the tickets for Sunday morning, 6am.

We drove all day, stopping every few hours for snacks, potty, etc. and made it to downtown Nashville for dinner about 7pm. The kids were absolutely awesome in the car all the way there. Rick drove straight thru and Julie kept everyone happy in their seats. Our friend insisted we stay at her place in downtown Nashville and so we took her up on the offer. We found a great restaurant to eat at in downtown... Old Spaghetti Factory; where we all ate the best spaghetti ever. We parked our truck at our friend's place and got the kids washed up and in bed by 10pm... we needed to be up again at 3am, so only a few hours of sleep for all of us.

We succeeded in waking the kids up and getting loaded up in the taxi to the airport on time. We checked in at the airport and were confirmed on the flight... Good, we are thinking... almost there. Our flight took off on time at 6am (7am our time... they are an hour behind us in Nashville) and we were on the ground in sunny warm Ft. Lauderdale by 9:30am Sunday morning, a day and a half later than planned.

Jim (Uncle Jim) picked us up and fed us breakfast and got us to our timeshare resort on the beach and we were settled and in the room, later than originally planned, but we made it!

So getting our family home from Flint airport this coming Saturday and getting our truck back from Nashville are minor technicalities... it will all work out in the end... we always have a plan.

The title of our blog is pretty appropriate for this post. Family adventures...

We will post pics of our trip after we get home. The internet connection here at the timeshare is not great.